Andy Ruiz Jr’s comeback bid was left in tatters on Friday night after the former unified heavyweight champion was knocked down and picked apart in a sobering unanimous-decision defeat to Damian Knyba in Newark, New Jersey.
Knyba won by scores of 117-110 and 114-113 twice, handing Ruiz the third defeat of his professional career and dealing a devastating blow to his hopes of becoming a two-time champion in boxing’s prestige division. The baffling pair of 114-113 cards flattered Ruiz considerably and bore little relation to the mostly one-way traffic that unfolded. (The Guardian had it 117-110.)
“This feeling is so amazing,” the New Jersey-based Pole said afterwards through a translator. “Not many people in the world can feel what I’m feeling right now.”
Ruiz (35-3-1, 22 KOs), who turns 37 next week and was returning from a 762-day layoff, cut a lamentable figure for most of the night, his once-blurring combinations carrying little of their old snap, his head almost stationary as the 30-year-old Knyba’s jab found it time and again. By the end of 12 dispiriting rounds at the home of the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, he looked less like a contender launching one final climb toward the summit than a shot fighter badly compromised by inactivity and injury.
Seven years ago, Ruiz authored one of the greatest upsets in boxing history at Madison Square Garden, climbing off the canvas to knock down the undefeated Anthony Joshua four times before stopping him in the seventh round and becoming the first fighter of Mexican descent to win a world heavyweight title. Barely six months later, the fairy tale was over. After months of partying and an abbreviated training camp, Ruiz arrived for the rematch 15lb heavier and surrendered the titles back to Joshua in a listless points defeat in Saudi Arabia, ending his unlikely reign after just 190 days.
For Ruiz, who had fought only three times in more than six years, Friday was meant to mark the beginning of one last run at a title suddenly within reach with 39-year-old Oleksandr Usyk preparing to exit the stage. Instead, Ruiz spent most of the night plodding after the 6ft 7in Knyba, unable to access the hand speed or footwork required to overcome the enormous physical disparity. There was little power behind his punches and even less of the explosive drive through his legs that once gave them such menace, perhaps a consequence of his surgically repaired right knee.
For six rounds it was a dour display. Knyba established the pattern early with a long, pawing left jab while moving backward, content to concede ground without allowing Ruiz into punching range. Whenever Ruiz did close the distance, the Pole swallowed him up inside his 86in reach and waited for referee David Franciosi to separate them. Ruiz trudged forward with almost no head movement, struggling to negotiate the 12in difference in reach while eating one jab after another.
The fight suddenly caught fire toward the end of the seventh when Knyba detonated a sharp one-two that badly wobbled Ruiz. A follow-up flurry sent him crashing to the canvas in a heap, where he stayed until the count of eight before hauling himself upright. By the time the bell sounded moments later, Ruiz had absorbed even more punishment and appeared out on his feet.
“I thought the fight was over,” Knyba said. “I didn’t want to make the same mistake that Anthony Joshua made where he just came onto him. I wanted to stay disciplined, keep my distance and just keep doing what I was doing.”
Ruiz emerged for the eighth with his face bruised and reddened, but for a moment the old instincts returned as he pounded Knyba with thudding shots to the head and body during his best offensive sequence of the night. The revival proved short-lived. Even as a crowd squarely in his corner urged him forward with chants of “Si se puede!” into the championship rounds, Knyba re-established the distance behind his jab and found Ruiz had little left to offer. By the 12th, the Pole was peppering his visibly depleted foe with unanswered jabs as the final bell approached.
“It was just him holding every time I tried to come in,” Ruiz said. “He’d hold me really tight and I couldn’t let my combinations go. But he played a good game plan. I’d love to run it back and do things a lot different.”
Before Friday, another run at the title was more than wishful thinking. With the unbeaten Usyk having vacated his remaining titles in June, the heavyweight championship has splintered among Murat Gassiev (the WBA beltholder), Agit Kabayel (WBC), Filip Hrgović (IBF) and Daniel Dubois (WBO), offering any number of potential pathways back to the top for a fighter with Ruiz’s name recognition. Even a rubber match with Joshua, once seemingly fanciful, appeared in play after the Englishman’s anticipated November showdown with Fury.
Knyba (18-1, 11 KOs), whose lone professional defeat came against Kabayel in January, was deliberately chosen as a meaningful test rather than a soft re-entry for the first outing of Ruiz’s three-fight deal with Matchroom Boxing. Eddie Hearn had said beforehand that if Ruiz truly intended to win another world championship, he needed to beat opponents of this level. Instead, against a foe who had never previously gone beyond eight rounds, Ruiz looked ordinary, hittable and alarmingly short of ideas. Still, he refused to concede that the defeat had ended his hopes of another title shot.
“Of course I [believe], man,” Ruiz said. “It was just a long layoff and it was a great opponent. I didn’t want to take an easy fight. That’s why I took Damian. He’s a big guy, but we’ve got to take risks.”
